The director's cut is a little longer (four minutes). Has some great in-jokes like "Any jerk can direct" and "I'm not in them - I make them." "Oh - he just makes them." Most of the incidents in it were based on stories told to him by Alan Dwan, Raoul Walsh and Leo McCarey.
It captures the early, crazy days of film-making really well, and the slapstick scenes just prove how difficult it is to get it as good as the classic silents (it's harder than it looks). Love the way that little dog charges in and out of scenes. And that Tatum's usually driving. (The Oscar win hadn't gone to her head, Peter says, she was great to work with.)
What I'd forgotten is the ending, The Clansman (the original name of The Birth of a Nation) screening (Peter sensibly omitting the dubious aspects of that picture), in a big cinema with a full orchestra and sound effects behind the screen, and their producer Brian Keith recognising that everything has changed. "You're giving them tiny pieces of time they'll never forget" (something Jimmy Stewart said to the director). It's somehow unexpectedly moving, especially with Peter slowly creeping his camera in for maximum impact (something he first did on Targets and frequently thereafter).
It's edited by William Carruth, supposedly. Laszlo Kovacs did actually shoot it though, and those iris dissolves were done for real on the camera, not in the lab.
Ryan O'Neal (who is still with us), Burt Reynolds (who is not), Tatum O'Neal, Stella Stevens, John Ritter, Jane Hitchcock. Though Peter had wanted John Ritter and Jeff Bridges to play the leads as they were younger, as well as Cybill Shepherd, and Orson Welles as the producer (wouldn't that have been great?)
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